The word 'Bethel', how appropriate

by *jeremiah* 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  *jeremiah*

  Sorry if this has been discussed before.

  Also I haven't done a ton of research but was recently curious about the name Bethel after by little bro asked me about it.

  WTS claims it means "House of God". However, just from a few quick searches it has several meanings and connotations. Many are pagan in nature. Wouldn't the WTS want to choose a name that was more spotless in nature without room for duel meanings?

  Tidbits from Wikipedia:

  Semitic root

  A Semitic, possibly Phonecian word meaning 'sacred stone/pillar" was the etymological root of the Greek Baetylus.

  • For traditions of other such stones named Bethel and a god named Bethel see also Bethel (god).

  "House of God" is definitely an arrogant approach to the naming of the JW compound, but apparently the name Bethel is also a God and a false God at that.

  So far, on our end (ex-jw's), we can say yes, Bethel is an apt name, for they are an organization that sets themselves (FDS/GB) up as God.

  Bethel (Israel) is a city in ancient Israel, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem. Its location is generally identified with the modern Palestinian village of Beitun in the West Bank. Its name is preserved in the adjacent Israeli settlement of Beit El.

  • Bethel was also a town in southern

  Judah (Joshua. 8:17; 12:16). It seems to be the same as the place called Bethul or Bethuel, a city of the tribe of Simeon.

  According to Biblical scripture, running from the wrath of his brother

  Esau, the patriarch Jacob rests and falls asleep on a stone for a pillow in this exact spot. In the dream that follows, Jacob sees a ladder leading up to Heaven, with angels going up and down on the ladder to and from Heaven. Jacob awakes, and realizes that God's presence is in this exact spot. He anoints his "Pillar Stone" here and later God commands him to build an altar here. Much later, the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Jeroboam) set up a Golden Calf here, (and another one in Dan), along with changing the Feast of Tabernacles to the eighth month instead of the seventh, and appointed non-Levites (or at least not the elder Levites) as priests in an attempt to keep Israelites from moving back down south to Jerusalem, thus losing tax money.

  A Bethel is the name given to the meeting place as well as the local group that meets in each city.

  The name Beth-El, though assumed to have originated from Jacob, actually is deemed by Biblical critics and scholars to have originated from an older source. The name Bethel is actually an ancient Canaanite deity which can be found in Jeremiah 48:13. This etymology is much more likely than the source given by Jacob.

  "a ladder to heaven and God's exact presence at that spot", another correlation can be applied to the WTS arrogance claiming to be the one true religion.

  Yet, the city of Bethel, was, to make a long story short, good at first, and then very very bad. A city that worshiped a golden calf,etc.,etc., ...a city associated with sin. Why would God's one true religion here on earth choose a name associated with such things?

  If you go to biblegateway.com and type in the word Bethel it pulls up every scripture with that word in it.

  You find some scripture where the word is in a positive context, but many in a negative context. Here's a few examples:

  Hosea 10:15
  Thus will it happen to you, O Bethel, because your wickedness is great.

  Amos 3:14
  "On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

  Amos 5:5
  do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.

  Hosea (Hosea 4:15; 5:8; 10:5, 8) calls it in contempt Beth-aven, i.e., "house of hurtfulness."

  Amen, Hosea, I agree with you.
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  Honesty

  I mentioned this to a Field Service Overseer about 2 years ago.

  Haven't heard from him since.
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  dedpoet

  apparently the name Bethel is also a God and a false God at that.

  As you say, how appropriate for the wts to call it's headquarters in various countries bethels.
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  carla

  I brought this up to my jw when he was new, just changed the subject. I suppose now he would claim I learned that from apostates and therefore would not be able to even think about it.
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  A Paduan

  and Bethel will be reduced to nothing

  ....prophecy can be encouraging...
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  Junction-Guy

  Hilarious, this is the 2nd time today I have been totally blessed. Thanks for this topic, it has brought a smile to my face.
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  PrimateDave

  I don't know about the Wikipedia, but the word Beth-El does mean "House [of] God". The point is that it doesn't say which god. To understand my point better read this excerpt from Is It God's Word? by Joseph Wheless, from chapter 9, "The Pagan God - And Gods - Of Israel":
  
  THE HEBREWS WERE HEATHENS
  
  That the Hebrews had the same God and gods as the peoples around them, and were thus pagan idolaters or "heathen," their own Scriptures declare many times. Up to the reputed times of Moses this fact is indisputable, on the face of the record. Until the traditional "giving of the law" to Moses on Sinai, there is not the slightest hint in the Hebrew Scriptures, covering a space of 2500 years, that the El or Yahveh of the patriarchs was different from any other El, or had or claimed any different cult or form of worship. He never made any such intimation in all his reputed appearances and talks with men, from Adam to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses.
  
  That the patriarchs down to the time of Moses were ordinary idolatrous heathen is perfectly apparent from the inspired texts. As we have noted, Father Abraham was of Ur of the Chaldees, "the land of his nativity" (Gen. xi, 28); and presumably from the silence of the record had never heard of Yahveh until the God appeared to him at Haran and told him to emigrate to Canaan (Gen. xii, 1), though he had already voluntarily done so (Gen. xi, 31). The Chaldeans were Syrians, certainly not "peculiar" votaries of the God Yahveh, but ordinary idol-worshipping heathens, as naturally were also the ancestors and family of Abram, and all their fellow Syrians, as they are expressly called. Laban, the father-in-law of Isaac, is called "Laban the Syrian" (Gen. xxxi, 20, 24), and he and his family worshipped teraphim (Gen. xxxi, 30-35). Laban was "son of Bethuel the Syrian" (Gen. xxviii, 5); the name Bethu-el shows that "El" was a common Syrian or Chaldean god, who continued as God of the three patriarchs. Abram's grandson Jacob is called "a Syrian about to die" (Deut. xxvi, 5) when he migrated to Egypt, 250 years after Abraham. It was therefore seventy Syrians who went into Egypt, speaking the Chaldean tongue, and becoming in 430 years good pagan Egyptians. After Jacob and his family of seventy migrated to Egypt, he and all his people continued regularly to worship "the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood [i.e., in Syria or Chaldea], and in Egypt" (Josh. xxiv, 14). After 430 years in Egypt, worshipping the ancient local gods, Moses had never even heard of the El-Yahveh: when he first met the strange God, at the burning bush, Moses had to ask: "What is thy name?" (Ex. iii, 13)
  
  (http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_wheless/is_it_gods_word/)
  
  Dave